Always Look Twice (18 page)

‘‘Well, you did last night.’’

‘‘I know that.’’

‘‘If you’re not on the Pill, then we had unprotected sex.’’

‘‘I know that, too!’’

His throat closed and his question came out rough and raspy. ‘‘Did you plan it, Annabelle?’’

You’d have thought he’d hit her, the way she reared back. For a long moment, time hung suspended as they stared at each other. Panic churned through him. Panic and a big black cloud of dread. He could see the hurt in her eyes, but the ugly emotions churning inside him prevented him from caring.

Then she pushed past him and in a scathing tone said, ‘‘You ass.’’

He wouldn’t argue that point. He knew she hadn’t planned the sex. She’d been swept up in the moment just like he had been. The problem was that Annabelle would welcome the result of their carelessness, while he . . . he . . . oh, crap.

He didn’t want a child.

Downhill from him ten yards or so, she suddenly stopped and turned. ‘‘You know . . . I let you do this to me once before. That day in New York I was so shocked that I let you sputter and spew without calling you on it. You know something? I’ve regretted it ever since.’’

‘‘Look, Annabelle.’’

‘‘No. Let’s do ‘Look, Mark’ instead, shall we? I have a few things I want to say to you. I think right here and right now is a right fine time to say them. So here we go. First’’—she held up her thumb—‘‘I want children, yes, but not at the cost of my honesty and integrity. That was true when my period was late two years ago, and it is true today. For you to suggest otherwise is both insulting and blind. Second, I don’t know what your hang-up is regarding children, but based on comments you’ve dropped in the past, I suspect it has something to do with your relationship with your own father. Frankly, Callahan, you need to do something about that.’’

‘‘Now, wait one minute.’’

She made a sweeping gesture with her hand and said, ‘‘Hush. It’s still my turn to talk. Your father must be, what . . . in his seventies? Maybe his eighties? You’d better deal with your issues while he’s still around, Callahan. Otherwise, one of these days you’ll wake up and it’ll be too late.’’

As always when the subject of Branch Callahan came up, Mark clamped his jaw shut. Children were one thing; his father was quite another.

Annabelle held up another finger. ‘‘Third, and pay attention, Callahan. This is a big one. Third. As upsetting as our lapse of good sense last night is, we can’t let it interfere with the purpose at hand. Someone wants to kill us, to kill all the Fixers. We need to keep our focus on finding that person.’’

He knew she was right . . . about that last part, anyway. He sucked in a deep breath, then nodded curtly. But just as he decided that he could keep his mind on murder, she had to go and distract him.

‘‘And finally, fourth, if I turn up pregnant, we’ll deal with it then. There’s no sense worrying about it ahead of time. So I suggest you put whatever hang-ups you have back in the closet, as we don’t have time to deal with your issues along with everything else.’’ With that, she continued down the hill.

Mark stared after her, her words echoing like thunder through his brain. Deal with it then . . . hell. He
couldn’t
deal with it. She didn’t understand.

In that moment, he wanted her to understand. For the first time ever, he wanted to share with her that sad, secret story that only a handful of people knew. His brothers, their wives. His goddamned father.

Maybe he should have told her that weekend at the Waldorf or that day at her office in Hawaii, but it was just so private. He told his brothers only because pain meds loosened his tongue. Hell, even all these years later, it was still a kick to the nuts just to think about what happened.

But maybe if he told her, she’d finally get it. The subject would be done with. Over. Finis.
Until her test stick turns blue.

Crap.

Hell, if his luck went that bad, then he’d probably be better off if she knew the score. Easier to tell her now than to do it then. God knew he wouldn’t be feeling as calm as he was right now if she came to him and said that cursed word: ‘‘Daddy.’’

Shit.

Mark closed his eyes, drew a bracing breath, then pulled his wallet from his pocket and started after her. ‘‘Annabelle, wait.’’

‘‘I’ve said all I have to say.’’

‘‘Well, I haven’t.’’ He grabbed her arm and yanked her to a stop. ‘‘I have something to show you. Someone, actually. Just keep your mouth shut and let me get it over with, okay?’’

As always, a lump the size of Texas formed in his throat as he pulled the picture from behind his driver’s license. He looked down at the photograph. The scrunched-up face and the Cindy Lou Who curl atop her head. Big, serious blue eyes. He thumbed the edges, swallowed hard, then handed it to Annabelle. ‘‘This is Margaret Mary, although I think of her as Maggie.’’

Her quizzical look lasted only a few seconds before her eyes widened and her gaze flew up to meet his. ‘‘Maggie . . . Callahan?’’

Annabelle always had been quick. He licked his lips and nodded.

Shock sharpened her tone. ‘‘You have a child?’’

‘‘Not anymore. She’s dead. She and my wife are both dead.’’

Almost imperceptibly, Annabelle stiffened. She licked her lips. ‘‘I don’t recall you ever mentioning that you’d been married before.’’

‘‘I don’t talk about it.’’

‘‘Obviously.’’ She brushed a finger over the photo. It was a newer copy of the old faded and tattered version he’d carried around for years. Torie had sneaked it from his wallet one day, worked some photographer’s magic on it, then gifted him with this one. Her tone soft and sad, Annabelle said, ‘‘She was a beautiful baby.’’

‘‘She was born during Desert Storm while I was deployed. She died before I ever had the chance to see her.’’

Annabelle’s big brown eyes softened with sympathy and pity. ‘‘Oh, Mark.’’

She touched his arm, but he pulled back. Closed off. Shut down. He took the picture away from her and returned it to his wallet.

‘‘What happened to her? To her mother?’’

He clenched his teeth. Even after all these years, this was still so damned hard.

‘‘Mark?’’

He brushed his thumb across the soft leather of his wallet. ‘‘They were killed in a car accident. My father was responsible.’’

‘‘He was driving?’’

‘‘In a manner of speaking.’’ He shoved his wallet into his back pocket. ‘‘Look, none of that matters. . . . I’m telling you about Maggie so you’ll see why the idea of having another child leaves me cold.’’

She stared at him for another few seconds, her eyes moist. ‘‘I’m sorry for your loss, Mark. I can only imagine how difficult that must have been for you.’’

‘‘So you understand my position.’’

Again, another pause, then, ‘‘It was a long time ago.’’

Anger whipped through him like a hot desert wind. He’d heard that before from his brothers and their wives and it pushed all his buttons. ‘‘No one has the right to tell someone else how long to grieve.’’

‘‘That’s true.’’ She studied him, her smile just a shade toward pitying. ‘‘If I thought grief was the problem here, I’d be a little more sympathetic.’’

‘‘What the hell does that mean?’’

‘‘I’ve stood beside you in a gun battle in Bosnia. I’ve followed you into the Colombian jungle to rescue a hostage from a drug lord. I watched you infiltrate a meeting between gun runners, gangsters, and terrorists in the Swiss Alps with no other weapon than your mind. I never took you for a coward, Callahan, until now. The prospect of fathering a child, of being responsible to a child, doesn’t leave you cold. It scares you to death!’’

Mark’s jaw gaped. He gave his head a little shake. He couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. ‘‘Did I just hear you call me a—’’

‘‘Coward. Yes. That’s what I said. That is exactly what I said.’’ Annabelle gave her head a toss. ‘‘If this had happened last year, in the last few years, I wouldn’t argue that it was grief. But more than fifteen years ago? It’s an excuse, Callahan. A few minutes ago I suggested you had issues to deal with. Well, let me put it a little plainer. You need a shrink.’’

Anger roared through him and he grabbed her arm. ‘‘Where the hell do you get off saying something like that?’’

She yanked away from him. Anger glittered in her eyes. ‘‘Because it’s my life, too. The child I could have had. The child we
should
have had. I loved you, Callahan. You should have told me.’’

‘‘I don’t talk about it. I can’t.’’

‘‘Not good enough.’’

‘‘It’s the truth. You don’t know what it’s like. Losing so much. First my mother, then my brother. Then my wife and daughter. It’s just too damned much. This is how I deal.’’

‘‘Deal? My God, Mark. That’s not ‘dealing.’ That’s avoiding. You need to quit living in the past.’’

‘‘I’m not. I’m merely controlling my future.’’

‘‘That’s a cop-out.’’ She threw out her hands in frustration.

Mark clenched his fists. ‘‘You don’t understand.’’

‘‘You are right about that. I
don’t
understand. Maybe I could if you were still a teenager, but you’re a grown man. You need to face this like a man.’’

She gazed at him with a look of scornful disbelief. ‘‘I swear, I’ve seen you under fire. I’ve watched you face certain death without blinking. I thought you were the strongest, most courageous man I’ve ever known. But you’re not strong and you’re not brave. You’re hiding in the past and that . . . weakness . . . of yours stole my future. You stole
my
family, Callahan. Damn you for that!’’

With that, she turned and marched away, descending the hill without sparing a single glance back.

Mark stared after her, the emptiness inside him yawning in his heart like a big black hole.

She’d called him a coward.

Damned if she wasn’t right.

The Telluride cops followed standard procedure when they separated Annabelle and Mark for questioning. She was dirty, tired, hungry, and still damp from the rain that started falling ten minutes or so before the tourist from Texas had stopped his car and given them a ride into town. Nevertheless, she’d never been so thankful to be escorted into an interview room in her life.

To call the mood between her and Mark strained was like saying the weather in hell was rather warm.

They’d exchanged maybe two dozen words since their altercation on the mountain, and the words had been curt. He was furious at her, but Annabelle didn’t really care. She was pretty furious herself.

How could a man be so physically courageous and such an emotional wimp?

She’d bet her bottom dollar that it went back to that family of his. To his crazy father. Back during the Fixer days, Mark had let slip little snide remarks about the man from time to time. Then during one of their weekends after they married, she had invited him to attend a volunteer dinner where she was to receive an award. He begged off, explaining that it conflicted with the Callahan brothers’ annual get-together in memory of their youngest brother, John. When she’d asked what the brothers did to mark the occasion, he’d replied that they usually spent the weekend fishing and cussing their father’s name. The venom in his voice when he’d said it had taken her aback.

Now as Annabelle waited for the police to begin their interrogation of her, she wondered just what Branch Callahan had done to make Mark hold him responsible for the car accident that killed his wife and child.

Mark’s wife. She wanted to know the other woman’s name, how long they’d been married, everything. They had to have been young—barely twenty, if even that— for the timing to work with Desert Storm. Had they been high school sweethearts? Or had Mark met her after Branch Callahan exiled him from his hometown?

Branch Callahan. Now, there was a man whom she’d like to slap upside the head if she ever had the opportunity to meet him. From what she could tell, he was the one who put the ‘‘dys’’ in the dysfunctional family.

The door opened and a cop walked in. ‘‘Ms. Monroe? You are free to go.’’

She frowned at him. ‘‘But you haven’t questioned me.’’

‘‘It’s not necessary. Mr. Callahan gave us a rundown of what transpired.’’

Annabelle opened her mouth, then shut it. She knew she should keep it shut, stand, and make her exit, but she couldn’t hold back the words. ‘‘And you believe him? Just like that?’’

‘‘We got a call from the Pentagon that backed up everything Mr. Harrington said. We were preparing to begin a search for you and Mr. Callahan when you arrived here. Now we’ll start looking for the woman who impersonated Brooke Mercer.’’

Annabelle’s mind snagged on the name. ‘‘Harrington? Tag Harrington called you?’’

‘‘No, ma’am. He’s—’’

‘‘Here.’’ Tag stepped past the policeman into the room. ‘‘I’m here.’’

The solemn look on his face had her stomach sinking. ‘‘What’s wrong?’’

‘‘Noah and I couldn’t reach you. We were afraid you had run into . . . trouble.’’

‘‘We did.’’

‘‘So I understand. That’s a bitch about Rocky.’’

He shoved his hands in his pants pockets and she waited, knowing there was more. Who was it? Noah? She braced herself as he opened his mouth, but nothing could have prepared her for the words he spoke.

‘‘Annabelle, we got a call from Kansas yesterday. There are no fatalities, but there’s been an attack on your family.’’

Everything within her froze. ‘‘Excuse me? What did you say?’’

‘‘He hit your family farm. Apparently it was someone’s birthday and a crowd was there. Something exploded in the kitchen. Luckily, almost everyone was in the dining room and escaped with only cuts and bruises.’’

Annabelle reached out and grabbed the back of a nearby chair for support. ‘‘Almost everyone?’’